A single website for public services and Government departments will go online
this week that will include “hidden” sensitive information for civil
servants in case of emergencies.

The new project, www.gov.uk, will show the true scale of the state as by including a simple list of all Whitehall departments and quangos in one place, as well as details of senior officials and ministers past and present.

It will also allow citizens to do everything from paying their council tax and setting up a company to checking when the clocks go back, by replacing the existing Direct.gov.uk and Business Link services.

Users will be able to log in with their existing Facebook accounts or by using mobile phones to pay bills and apply for benefits or passport forms.

But accounts of the site’s development, including problems and technical bugs, disclose that among the thousands of pages will be some containing important details of what civil servants should do in the event of a national crisis.

It will tell them if it is safe to come to their offices and how they can carry on working if normal computer systems are disrupted, and they will be able to access it without entering passwords.

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A note on features still to be added to the Inside Government site, part of Gov.uk, is headed: “Hidden page for staff in emergencies.”

The developer in charge of the project wrote: “I need a page on inside gov which is not linked to from any part of the site where I can post updates for my organisation's staff about access to the office and IT systems during an emergency, so I can meet business continuity plan requirements.

“Depts issue all their staff with a card (a bit like a donor card) with info about how to check if it's safe to come to work when there's something going down. This includes a phone number and a web address.

“We need to provide such a page, to be shared by all orgs, and redirect all their old ones to this one.”

The note added: “No need for any security, the info is not secret.”

But experts questioned why such information would be put on a prominent public website.

Paul Davis, director of Europe, FireEye, said: “Having a joined up, centralised website will certainly make it much easier for users to access public service information, but it's crucial that this new found usability is balanced with security.

“Although this is by no means top secret information, I can't think of a single reason why it's a good idea for emergency procedures to be readily available to one and all over the web.

“The rest of the world simply does not need to know this information.

“It's hard to reason why the Government, which is had been toughening up its act on cybercrime with initiatives such as the new International Cyber Security Centre, would neglect to ensure 'need to know' information is always password protected.”

The main Gov.uk site will go live on Wednesday with the Inside Government elements being added over the next few months.

There is no marketing budget for the launch of the service but users of the existing websites will be redirected to new pages, while public sector officials such as Jobcentre staff will also highlight the new address.

A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: "The single government website will launch on 17 October. Gov.uk will make government services and information simpler, cleaner and faster for users.

"It's standard practice for organisations to have a page on the web that their staff can refer to for business continuity instructions. This is no different. At present, each government department has its own website with this information, but as these websites move onto gov.uk staff will need to be able to find this information there."